MAKING A DECISION

MAKING A DECISION
Ares's point of view

The pain was beginning to fade, but the memories of the shift lingered like smoke after a wildfire — thick, choking, and impossible to ignore. My body still ached in places where bones had broken and reformed. My senses, sharpened and raw, caught every faint sound and subtle change in the air.
And then I felt her.
Before I heard her footsteps, before I saw her shadow cross the doorway, I felt her presence. Like the weight of something familiar pressing gently against my chest.
Tessa.
She stepped into the cottage, her figure partially hidden by the flickering candlelight. She walked with more purpose than before — something in her eyes had changed. She was no longer the frightened girl Matilda had pulled from the edges of her own magic. She was becoming something else. Something stronger.
She sat beside me without hesitation. I saw no pity in her eyes. Only fire.
"I heard you shifted," she said softly.
I nodded. My voice still felt like gravel, so I stayed quiet, letting her speak.
“There’s an old witch helping me now. Matilda,” she added, her voice dipping slightly at the name. “She says I have magic in my blood... something ancient. I didn’t believe her at first. But last night... I felt you, Ares.”
My eyes met hers. I hadn’t imagined it then — that strange thread pulling me back from the edge, the sense that someone had reached into my chaos and tethered me to reality.
“I need to learn,” she continued, eyes fixed on her hands. “I need to control whatever this is before it destroys everything around me.”
“You do,” I said, the words rough in my throat. “Because there’s a war coming. And you’ll need to protect yourself.”
She exhaled a breath that sounded like it had been trapped in her chest for days. “I don’t care about protecting myself anymore,” she said. “Not really.”
I looked at her sharply. “Don’t say that.”
“I mean it,” she replied, her voice unwavering. “My family died protecting me and my brother. They made that choice. And now... I’ve lost him too. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead, and it kills me every time I breathe.”
She paused, and in the silence that followed, I saw a glimpse of her soul — cracked, but not broken. Raw. Real.
“But if I have this magic,” she went on, “I want to use it to save lives. I want to make it mean something. Because if I don’t... then what’s the point of surviving?”
Something inside me shifted at her words. Something old and bitter that I’d buried under years of anger and blood. Pride — not the arrogant kind, but something deeper. I was proud of her. For choosing to fight. For standing here, heart torn open, and still willing to give more.
And in that moment, I couldn’t stop myself.
I reached for her. Slowly. Giving her time to pull away.
She didn’t.
My hand cupped the side of her face, and I leaned in, brushing my lips against hers. It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It wasn’t soft or tentative. It was honest. Passionate. A collision of two broken people who had survived too much, felt too deeply, and learned to hide it too well.
She didn’t push me away.
Her fingers gripped my shirt, and for a heartbeat, everything else — the war, the magic, the pain — faded. It was just us. Breathing the same air. Feeling the same ache.
When we finally parted, I searched her face. She didn’t speak. But she didn’t need to.
Her silence wasn’t rejection. It was understanding.
She knew what I was. What I had become. And somehow, she still chose to stay in that moment with me.
I leaned back, letting the silence speak for both of us. We didn’t need words. Not now. We were learning our own monsters — hers born of grief and loss, mine of blood and rage. Two souls shaped by the streets, sharpened by survival. Mirroring each other more than we dared to admit.
And now... I had a reason to control the beast inside me.
Her.
She gave me something I hadn’t had in a long time — a reason to believe I wasn’t completely lost. A reason to fight for more than vengeance.
As the moonlight poured in through the cracks of the cottage roof, casting her face in silver and shadow, I made a silent vow:
If the world came for her, it would have to go through me first.